


Fate Knew Something We Didn't

by SequinSmile



Series: Our Little Universe [3]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Family, Fluff, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28371633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SequinSmile/pseuds/SequinSmile
Summary: He had to believe it. Every little thing in his life, both good and bad, had led to this - being with the woman he loved. A woman who had been through so much herself but still had the capacity and the drive to be kind and loving.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Emily Prentiss
Series: Our Little Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087001
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Fate Knew Something We Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> This is linked to my two Christmas stories I posted over the holidays - Christmas at the Embassy & Christmas at the Hotchners. You don't have to read them necessarily, but please feel free :) 
> 
> All you need to know is that Emily did not go to London at the end of series 7, so it is AU, and she stayed in DC and started a relationship with Hotch. This story is set about a year since they got together, so around 2 years since she 'came back from the dead.' There is more context about their relationship in the aforementioned Christmas stories. 
> 
> It's admittedly very, very fluffy. But you know, there has been enough angst in 2020 to last a lifetime! 
> 
> Enjoy :)

The case was a hard one. That had become abundantly clear when they had seen the first crime scene photos in the briefing room that very morning. Women in their late 30s to early 40s in Sacramento were being attacked in their own homes when their husbands were out. The attacks were violent and seemed personal, but apart from the fact all the women were blonde and in well paid jobs there was no connection. 

“Do you want me to call, Jessica?” Emily asked Aaron as they all filed out the briefing room was 30 minutes to go before wheels up. 

“If you don’t mind that would be great.”

“Of course. I’ll let her know we’ll probably be out of town a few days.” She smiled at him as she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and walked towards her desk as she made the call. 

It had been a little shy of 6 months since he had asked her to move in with him and Jack, even though she had all but been living there anyway. They both enjoyed having someone there all the time, and Jack certainly loved having Emily around even more than she had been before. They were considering looking for their own place - a house to call home for all of them that they chose together. He loved their apartment, but it sometimes felt too small for them. Jack was a growing boy and an endless ball of energy, even at 7 years old, and having a backyard for him to run around it would be a godsend to them all. 

Aaron watched Emily from his office as he grabbed his go bag. She was on the phone to Jessica explaining, and he saw her laugh at something the other woman had clearly said on the other end of the line. The relationship between the two women was a little strained at first which had frustrated him a little, but Emily had pointed out that Jessica was just being protective of him and Jack and doing what she thought Haley would have wanted. They still weren’t what Aaron would refer to as friends, but he could see that they might be in the future. 

“Boss?” He looked towards the door to see JJ stood there looking at him with an amused expression. “Time to go.” She explained, smiling a little on the blush on his cheeks because he had been caught staring at his girlfriend at work.

They walked down to the main part of the office together and he stopped at Emily’s desk. She was off the phone now and harassing Morgan about something or other.

“All good with Jess?” 

“All good.” She answered turning her attention to him from Morgan. “Any chance I can get a ride with you to the air strip? My boyfriend dropped me to work this morning.” She looked at him with a devilish glint in her eye, and he gave the ‘Hotch glare’ as she called it back. 

“That wasn’t funny the first time you said it, Prentiss. Let alone the 50th.” He said as they walked towards the elevators. 

“It was a little funny, Hotch.” She replied, emphasising the use of his nickname. 

_______________________________________________________________________

Emily laid next to her boyfriend in their shared hotel room bed and considered how long their day had been. It felt like days had passed since they left Quantico that morning, and all she wanted was to fall asleep but her mind was racing. 

As they arrived in Sacramento another body had been found, and she had been tasked with interviewing the victims family with some of the local police. It had hit her particularly hard. 

They had done what had become routine when they were away on a case. They called Jack at around 8pm before his bed time to say good night, and then continued working until gone 10pm, at which point Aaron suggested they all called it a night. They did not have a full profile yet, but they would approach it with fresh minds in the morning. 

Everyone had seemed relieved, since the long day combined with the change in time zone meant they had all been awake far longer than any reasonable person would deem necessary. She genuinely had never felt so happy to flop onto an uncomfortable hotel bed mattress as she had been when they had walked into their room a couple hours ago. When they moved in together any pretence of them using separate hotel rooms on cases went out the window.

Aaron had chuckled at the sight of her star-fished in the middle of the bed and all but coerced her into sitting up so they could eat something. Emily suggested a joint shower when they finished eating, which very quickly turned into something else entirely, which is how they currently found themselves naked in the bed, a thin sheet the only thing covering them. 

Emily’s mind drifted to the man laying partially underneath her. His fingers moving up and down her bare back in a way that would usually send her off in a trance, but her mind kept drifting back to the conversation she had with the latest victims husband. 

_“We should have had more time.”_

“Do you ever think about it?” She said out loud, not realising she had until he responded. 

“Think about what?” He replied, wondering if he had somehow zoned out of a conversation they had been having. His brain wasn’t always exactly at its most effective post sex, which was something she teased him mercilessly about. 

“How much time we wasted. I knew I felt something more than friendship for you back when Foyet attacked you.” 

She still remembered the heavy feeling in her stomach when she found his apartment empty, a bullet hole in the wall and his blood on the floor. Emily knew the moment she found him in the hospital and the fear felt when she took in his injuries that she had inappropriate feelings for her boss, but she did what she did best. She compartmentalised. 

The timing had never been right, with him sending Jack and Haley away and all the awful things that followed. She was there for him in all the ways she could bear to be without letting herself get hurt. He wasn’t in the place for what she had started to realise what she wanted, and he certainly hasn’t been after Haley’s death. 

They had spoken about this before - their mutual attraction for each other that went back years. He had always thought she was beautiful, going right back to when he briefly met her at a function her mother was hosting when he worked for her. She had been poised, and polite. Everything her mother wanted her to be. Even through their very limited interaction he could see how how stifled she seemed in that environment.

When she appeared in his office saying she was joining his team he thought she was beautiful, despite how much he had not wanted her there at the time. Over the coming months he learnt everything else about her and his attraction shifted from purely physical to something he had ignored at the time. 

Then she quit her job instead of giving Strauss what she wanted. She looked after him and kept close through everything with Foyet, and it wasn’t until later he realised how much more she had done for him and his son than anyone else. He realised Emily Prentiss was exactly who he wanted and needed by his side. 

He had been planning on doing something about it just before Doyle came along. Their moment where their relationship could change pushed back yet again. 

“We could have had so much longer like this.” She said as she shifted her head from his shoulder and sat up to lean against the headboard so she could look at him a little better.

“What’s brought this on, Em?” He asked gently, moving to sit up next to her pulling the sheet with them to keep them from the chill from the hotel room around them. He shifted closer so they were pressed together but able to look at each other. Aaron took in the look on her face, she looked contemplative, almost sad. 

“The victim’s husband that I interviewed today,” she started. “He explained that they had been high school sweethearts. Fell apart during college and found each other again during their late 30s after a failed marriage each. He said to me that he wishes they hadn’t wasted so much time.” 

He smiled sadly at her. The case was rough, as they all were if he was honest, and he could tell it had impacted her a bit more than usual when they had finally decided to leave the police station for the night to get some rest. Her shoulders had sagged a bit, and her smile when he suggested getting some room service at the hotel didn’t quite reach her eyes. 

“You can’t really think like that, Emily. Everything happens when it is supposed to.” It was a thought process he struggled with himself at times. Especially when it came to thinking about Haley and all the other awful things his team had been through over the years, but he had to believe it. Every little thing in his life, both good and bad, had led to this - being with the woman he loved. A woman who had been through so much herself but still had the capacity and the drive to be kind and loving. 

“You’re telling me, Agent Hotchner, that you believe in fate?”

“We happened exactly when we were supposed to. Who knows what could have happened to us if we had been together when Doyle showed up.” He said as he ran his fingers just below her rib cage through the sheet that laid over her. The scarring just below his fingertips was something he knew she still struggled with even now, no matter how often he told her every inch of her was beautiful. He also knew that the brand that Doyle had burned into her skin just above her left breast was what she hated the most. 

“He would have killed you and made me watch.” She replied, her voice certain and empty. “And then I would have let him kill me.” He put his arm around her shoulders at that comment and pressed a kiss to her temple, knowing there was nothing he could really say to respond to that. 

It had almost been two years since she came back from the dead, and close to one since they had become them. She still carried the burden from it all, and Aaron knew she always would. She still had nightmares, brought on by cases that hit too close to home or sickness or tiredness that always made her hyper vigilant, in turn triggering her PTSD. 

He wished he could take it all away, but he knew he couldn’t. Emily always told him he made it better though. Those first few seconds after she woke up from her nightmares when she thought she was still alone in Paris, mourning the life she once had, were always the worst. Then she would remember he was there and the life she now had came back into focus. 

She did the same for him. All these years later he still dreamt of Foyet. Of Haley’s death and killing a man himself with his fists. Emily was always there to bring him back to the present and remind him of what had changed. 

They helped each other, and they loved each other completely. It had taken some work at the start of their relationship to be able to talk about it all so openly, but they were much better at it now. 

“Did you hear what Reid was saying earlier on the jet about the theory of the multiverse?” He asked, after a couple minutes of silence had passed. 

The flight from DC to Sacramento had been long, leaving plenty of time after they had gone over the details of the case for them to chat about over things. Reid spoke, at length, as he often did about whatever came to mind. 

“I was actually actively ignoring him.” She quipped. “I was trying to do some case work to earn favour with my boss.”

“I have it on good authority that you don’t need to do casework to do that.” He said cheekily as he pressed a kiss to her shoulder. She glared at him, but he could tell it was in good humour.

“According to Reid, the multiverse theory says there are several universes all exist at the same time. Meaning there could be a universe where we got together sooner and had the extra time you’re talking about. There may be one where we never got together at all.” 

She frowned at that, not liking the idea of living her life without him. Without them together. He soothed the frown line between her eyebrows with his finger before dropping a kiss to her forehead. 

“Personally I think it’s a load of nonsense,” he said in his usual deadpan tone. She laughed, which she knew was the reaction he was after, and not for the first time since their relationship started she considered how she never realised how funny he was before they got together. “Even if it was true, I quite like our little universe.” 

“Me too.” She replied, smiling at him and leaning forward to kiss him. 

“I think everything between us worked out exactly as it should have, Em.” He repeated as he pulled away, his hand on the back of her neck keeping her in place. “Even if we had got together the very first time we met back when I worked for your mother, no amount of time with you would be enough.” 

A laugh escaped her and she learnt forward, leaning her forehead against his right cheek briefly. She brought her hand to his left cheek and lifted her head so she could press her lips against the cheek she had just leaned on. 

“That is the sweetest and corniest thing anyone has ever said to me.” She murmured into his cheek, kissing him again when she was done. She pulled away to look at him again. “Although you are only in competition with yourself. None of my exes are what I’d ever call sweet.” 

She kissed him, on the lips this time, and tried to express everything she felt for him through the kiss. Before things could get heated, Aaron pulled away and glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand behind her, which showed it was 1.30am.

“We should probably get some sleep.” He said gently, knowing their alarms were set for 6am. She nodded in agreement and they both laid back down properly in the bed. She settled her head on his chest as he pulled her into an embrace and she threw a leg over his. 

“Aaron?” She whispered after a few minutes, checking to see if he was still awake. 

“Yes?” His voice was groggy. She always envied how fast he could fall asleep.

“No amount of time with you would be enough either.” She almost felt embarrassed to say it. None of her relationships before Aaron had ever been so open, and sometimes she worried she still wasn’t any good at it. The kiss he pressed into her hair and slight squeeze he gave her calmed her concerns. 

“Love you, Em.” 

“Love you, too.”

The last thing Aaron thought of before he drifted off was the ring he had safely stored away in his desk drawer in his office back at Quantico, and how it really belonged on her finger.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really enjoying writing for this little universe I have created, so I hope you are enjoying reading it. 
> 
> There is more to come - including some angst - and this will form a series of oneshots. 
> 
> Let me know what you think :) 
> 
> Until next time,
> 
> SequinSmile x


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